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The University was last week declared Times Higher Education University of the Year 2013 and is now looking ahead for its next 5 year strategic plan

Archives and Special Collections 10 year plan reflects the University’s Vision to be an inspiring, innovative University of international renown.

Having written an enormously long, first strategic plan for submission with our HLF round 2 application – as per HLF guidance – I’ve now condensed it into a summary Strategy map 2012-2023 more in keeping with the University’s culture. We’ll be reporting on it annually as a service, and I also plan to publish some of the extracts – for example, our sustainability strategy – over the coming months.

the results of the largest ever poll of public attitudes on personal information and data- sharing. Based on a representative sample of 5,000 adults, the report finds a growing crisis in consumer confidence over how government and business handle personal data, and discomfort about the way in which personal information and data are currently being used.

The report argues that this loss of confidence could have a knock-on effect on the economy and on the quality of services available to consumers. However, it also finds that views about sharing change when people are given more control and choice about what data is shared, and when the benefit of sharing that data is made clear to them. It therefore suggests that consumers should be engaged in an honest dialogue about how data are collected and used, and be given meaningful choice and control over the information they share. That will be good for business and consumers alike.

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I’ve been working with a few people recently and the following are some of the things that have helped them get on top of their mailboxes. I have permission to say that the worst inbox I’ve helped deal with contained 6,478 items – 5,893 were unread (!). If this sounds like you, why not try some of these ideas – let me know if any work for you!

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Several things coming together at the moment in thinking about impact and value of recordkeeping, persuasion and advocacy.

Yesterday – prior to this lunchtime’s emergency budget – a discussion topic started on the archives-nra list about records and value. Some interesting posts already and hopefully more to come.

Last week the Generic Social Outcomes – a way of describing impact of work in communities – were launched by MLA. They use three outcome areas (stronger & safer communities, health & well-being, and strengthening public life). I worked on these at a very early stage (way back in 2006/7) and am delighted to see them launched.

And today I had a Manager Tools email newsletter which began with some words on “Know Your Business”:

I was was reminded – again – how important it is to understand how the business you’re in works.

The first reminder came when I learned that UPS trucks don’t make left turns. Think about that for a second. UPS has determined that left turns are EXPENSIVE. There’s more idling time, which is expensive. And there’s more accidents, which are VERY expensive. UPS manages its business carefully, and it know these things, so it had its routing software set up to eliminate left turns. You might think that’s a nice thing…but UPS thinks it’s good business. How good? UPS has about 90,000 trucks…and this change alone saves them ELEVEN THOUSAND TRUCKS….

…American Airlines prints marketing messages on the napkins that it gives out to go under every drink it provides. [The latest: “Turn flights and everyday purchases into lifetime memories.”]. That costs money, right? Sure it does: plain napkins are cheaper than napkins that are printed upon. Soooooooo, if you’re a flight attendant, you’re told that you’re supposed to place the napkin on the tray SO THE MARKETING MESSAGE IS READABLE BY THE PASSENGER

…This isn’t micro-managing, this is managing your business, because you know your business.

Do you know your business? Do you know what drives revenue? What are the biggest costs? What are the controllable costs? How can you contribute?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions you should. Management doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens in the context of a business…

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Just back from two days (well, a day and a half in my case) at the Survive or Thrive conference run by JISC/UKOLN. I want to reflect a bit more on the themes and the content of the conference, so that’s a post for another day.

Today’s post is just to reflect the laptop : smartphone : iPad : no device visibly in use ratio from day 1

27 : 4 : 1 : 22

And this wordle perhaps gives a flavour from the day 1 keynote and other scene-setting papers of the conference

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“We can multi-task” said my husband and his father cheerfully. “There are two of us”.

I’ve been doing some work recently on productivity and time management, bouncing some ideas around with miss dragonara about supporting colleagues in this area in a more practical/implementable way than some of the time management type of courses seem to achieve. I’ve also been doing some one-to-one work with colleagues with over-full email inboxes (4,357 items was the record in the inbox alone). This has all tied in with the 25 Things background of sources of information and things to do, as well as the work I’ve been doing on the JISC impact calculator and thinking about the effects of change management initiatives in this kind of area.